Both sides have rested their case in Trump's civil fraud trial. What happens now?

The lights are out in Donald Trump's civil fraud trial.

After 44 days of testimony, the trial is set to resume in January with closing arguments. A final decision in the case is not expected until late January or early February, when Judge Arthur Engoron issues a written opinion.

"We have oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 11 but in a strange way, I'm going to miss this trial. It's been an experience," Engoron remarked Wednesday as he wrapped up the day's contentious proceedings.

"I feel exactly like I did before, three years ago. This case was a joke. We wasted three months," Trump's legal spokesperson, Alina Habba, said on her way out of court.

In the next phase of the trial, each side will present a 25,000-word summation brief by Jan. 5, followed by oral arguments where attorneys will likely be grilled by Engoron, who already in a pretrial partial summary judgment that Trump had used fraudulent documents to conduct business.

"We have already proven that he committed years of financial fraud and unjustly enriched himself and his family," said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought case against Trump. "No matter how much he tries to distract from reality, the facts don't lie."

Here are three questions regarding where things stand.

What's with the delay?

Engoron settled on a protracted approach at the request of Trump's attorneys, who argued that the volume of evidence in the case merits a lengthier timeframe.

"There is just an awful lot of argument to cover," Trump attorney Chris Kise said in court in arguing for the longer schedule.

State attorneys initially wanted closing arguments to immediately follow the evidentiary phase, but Engoron opted to take advantage of the flexibility afforded by a bench trial, in which he alone is deciding the outcome rather than a panel of jurors.

"In a jury trial, you don't want to keep the jurors hanging around for a long period of time," Syracuse University College of Law professor Gregory Germain told ABC News. "With a judge trial, they can do whatever the parties are happy with."

According to Germain, the use of written briefs also helps the attorneys maintain a stronger record for a possible appeal, which could take months before a final decision, including penalties, is reached. Having already appealed Engoron's summary judgment ruling, Trump appears headed to the New York's Appellate Division following the conclusion of the trial.

"At this point the trial court must and should follow the law ... if not, President Trump remains confident the Appellate Division will ultimately correct the innumerable errors and reign in a meddling Attorney General intent on abusing the legal system and driving profitable businesses out of New York," Kise said in a statement late Wednesday.

James, in a statement, said that the trial "revealed the full extent" of Trump's fraud and that she looks forward to closing arguments.

What did the New York AG argue?

Lawyers for the New York attorney general have largely considered the outcome of the trial a forgone conclusion -- less about if Trump is liable for the alleged conduct and more about how much Trump will have to pay in penalties.

"We have already won on summary judgment. I don't know what we are pretending is happening here," state attorney Kevin Wallace said on Tuesday.

An expert witness for the state, Michiel McCarty, testified that Trump's lenders lost $168 million in potential interest between 2014 and 2023 due to Trump's misrepresentations in his statements of financial condition, according to a report McCarty presented in court.

While James initially estimated that she would request Engoron fine Trump roughly $250 million, she is now likely to request a fine of nearly $400 million, with the state potentially requesting disgorgement for the profits that Trump made from the sales of his golf course in the Bronx and his Washington D.C. hotel.

What did Trump's lawyers argue?

During their four-week case, defense lawyers attempted to show that Trump's misstatements were neither intentional nor material to his lenders.

Expert witnesses including NYU professor Eli Bartov and former SEC accountant Jason Flemmons testified that Trump warned his lenders that his statements may be unreliable and that he fully disclosed deviations from generally accepted accounting standards.

"My main finding is that there is no evidence whatsoever for any accounting fraud," Bartov testified.

Trump's attorneys maintained that the alleged fraud had no victims, calling to the stand a parade of employees from Deutsche Bank to show that the bank was eager for Trump's business and that it made money on his loans, knowing all the while that Trump likely overstated his net worth by billions.

"We did nothing wrong. There were no victims. The bank loves us," Trump said while attending the trial last week.

The parties will return to court on Jan. 11 for the trial's next phase.